My officials and I are involved in ongoing North South engagement. Ongoing priorities for advancing cooperation include those being progressed through the structures of the North South Ministerial Council; the plenary meeting of the Council took place last Friday 2 November in Armagh and the Health and Food Safety Sectoral took place in July last. There is ongoing engagement at official level. Collaboration takes place on a wide range of health and social care issues including, for example, Radiotherapy Services, Paediatric Congenital Cardiac Services, Health Promotion, Cancer Research, Food Safety and Suicide Prevention. Co-operation and Working Together (CAWT) is involved in cross-border collaborative working in the field of health and social care and also manages and delivers a range of activities that are being supported by the EU Structural Fund Initiative - INTERREG IVA.
A Principal Officer, an Assistant Principal Officer (0.8 WTE) and a Higher Executive Officer, within the Capital/EU/International and Research Policy Unit have responsibilities that includes North South matters. In addition there is bilateral engagement between officials across my Department and officials in the Department of Health and Social Services and Public Safety in Northern Ireland on specific issues. It is not possible to quantify how much of an individual's time is spent engaged solely on North South activities. There are no specific vacancies relating to North South.
